Being your own boss sounds lucrative. 

However, being your own boss is not easy. The freedom of time is one of the most common reasons behind employed professionals switching to self-employment.

However, being self-employed is a lot of work with too little time to do it.

As a result, many solopreneurs find themselves working more hours than what they used to put in at work. This however, doesn’t mean that solopreneurs cannot have time for leisure or for spending with family.

It just means that solopreneurs need to maintain a high level of productivity in order to live a balanced life. Being highly productive means being disciplined and being disciplined is not an easy task.

With that said, there are many productivity hacks that one can employ. Different things work for different people but here are a few tricks that are often overlooked:

Time Tracking

Tracking time is often missed because when one thinks about tracking time, employee time tracking comes to mind. However, the benefits of employee time tracking also apply to personally tracking your own time.

By doing this, you will be able to keep yourself accountable, plan your days and tasks more efficiently, and identify time wasters and deterrents to your productivity and eliminate them.

The best part is, you will be able to determine the exact amount of time it takes for you to complete a certain task, enabling you to make informed and better decisions about your schedule.

Automate

Being proficient with technology has almost become a mandate for being an entrepreneur in today’s age. However, even if you are not tech savvy, you can quickly learn to use an online automation app like If This Then That (IFTTT).

The app lets you automate daily tasks like automatically saving your dinner receipts to your financial management app.

While such small tasks might not seem like much, it is important to remember that they take up actual time of your day, time that you can spend doing something more productive, time that you will never get back.

Not to mention, having fewer things to do can do wonders for your ability to focus, which can further contribute to improving your productivity.

Start Delegating

Yes, I know, being a solopreneur means you work alone. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t delegate to other businesses and solopreneurs.

While outsourcing the tasks related to your core expertise might not be a wise idea, you can still delegate daily, menial tasks to a virtual assistant. Sure, having one sounds like an expensive deal. However, the reality is quite different.

You can find hundreds of virtual assistants on websites like Upwork for as little as $100/month.

Keep Your Phone Aside

The modern smartphone may be an extremely useful device, yet most of us can’t stop ourselves from watching cute cat videos every now and then. Even if you aren’t absolutely addicted to scrolling through social media apps on your phone, the occasional look at your email inbox has immense potential to mess with your productivity and focus.

Did you know it takes us over twenty minutes to regain focus after a distraction occurs? That’s why, it is advisable to delegate specific windows of time to checking your phone and your email. The rest of the time, it is wise to keep your phone aside.

Cluster Tasks

Clustering similar tasks together is a great way to make your schedule more streamlined. This strategy works for both, office and personal tasks.

For instance, you can group all your personal chores like grocery shopping, payment of bills, home maintenance and get them done in a single stretch of one or two days. This way, you can avoid sprinkling these tasks all over your week and free up time for other things.

Similarly, if you have multiple clients that demand a weekly virtual check in, schedule all of their calls on just one or two days of your week.